


Wrath of Gods

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [83]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Missing Scene, Murphy-centric, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:06:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24821302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Murphy is no hero. He should never have tried to lift that mantle. But, when he sees the children in the tavern about to be sacrificed for their parent's beliefs, he decides to do the right thing.As usual, it doesn't go as planned.
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Series: The 100 Fics [83]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/543928
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	Wrath of Gods

**Author's Note:**

> Slight canon divergence in the description of the tavern scene in 705, because it's been too long since I wrote a Murphy-centric fic

Anger coils in his belly like a snake as he stands in the tub, oil rolling down his skin in this sort of backward baptism.

 _I will have your hides_ , hisses an angry voice in his mind. _I will tear this place to the ground and bathe in your blood._

“That is enough,” decides Trey, the words sticky with his righteousness, heavy with command. _Be afraid_ , says his smile _, for now, you die_.

Murphy will not be afraid. He won’t beg or cry; he has faced worse odds, been touched by scarier monsters than these. So, he wraps himself in his acid tongue, false pride and authority, and plasters an amused smile on his face. “I was starting to enjoy that.”

The man doesn’t look amused. Captors never do. They shove him forward, out of the tub, and toward the door.

He has seen the corpse of the first person that immolated herself, knows that burning to death is a slow and painful way to go. Murphy isn’t afraid of the pain; he isn’t scared of death. He is afraid of what comes _after_. Of the loneliness and the darkness and hanging. Of clawing at a rope and swinging in the air and trying to take a lung-full of air when there is none.

“You don’t have to do this.”

Of course, nobody listens to him. Nobody ever listens. _Shut up, Murphy._

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees one of the children he tried to save, a girl with dirt-blond hair like Harper’s and a pointy little snub of a nose. She looks scared.

 _Will she be next?_ a small part of him wonders.

The Faithful push him forward. 

Emori wouldn’t have been caught. From the two of them, she was always the con-artist. Lying and understanding prey are her specialties, she has taken time to learn her role, reading through Kyle’s journals before bed, going through pictures and video files. She would have saved the children. She also wouldn’t have said _Let them burn_. Sick and unsteady, she tried to do the ‘right thing.’ 

Trey grabs a candle from another of the Faithful. The fire in his hand makes the imminent burning real, dredging the memories of his previous attempted burning up, bringing the image of Raven and Emori tied to pyres, the stench of gasoline harsh in the air.

His stomach turns as he digs his heels in.

They push him, but he knows what being executed feels like, and he doesn’t want to. Pride, aloofness, and sarcasm slip between his fingers, exposing the ugly truth of himself. He has lost his clever words and his schemes.

The doors open. The hands on his back feel like claws and, when they drape a coarse cloth around his shoulders, it feels cold like the thin cable they used to hang him. He can feel it, closing around his throat. For a terrifying moment, he is back in that forest, surrounded by delinquents, drunk on revenge and power. He fights the restraints and fights the hands, a growl vibrating deep in his throat.

He won’t die. He won’t let them.

“Get off of me!”

He lashes out, not as he did against Bellamy or Raven or even Monty, but like Echo taught him. _You are quick, and you have strength. Use it to your advantage._

His hands are restrained with cumbersome shackles, but the chain between them allows him more freedom of movement than the Ark’s zip-ties would have. He shifts his weight with the punch.

 _I will tear you to shreds_ , Murphy vows. _I will claw your eyes out and bathe in your blood!_

He swipes the feet from under one of the faceless people around him in a move that would have made Echo proud. His skin feels slick; the cooling air raises goosebumps on his back. A reminder that one wrong brush and flames will devour him.

The heavy chain, connecting his wrists, cuts across the air, connecting with Zev’s eyebrow. His red blood feels oddly gratifying.

Daniel’s lover stares at him with flashing eyes.

 _I will kill you; he_ wants to say. _You will die by my hand for this._

Zev curls his lip and charges like a bull, digging his shoulder into Murphy’s stomach and shoving him back. He stumbles and falls; dirt digs into his back. Overhead, the alien sky is dark.

The blackness reminds him of the Ring. Of sitting in the observation bay, his ego bruised, and his body restless. It reminds him of fighting over and over against the memories of his mother, of the Skybox, of feeling trapped and caged. Of Emori, sitting beside him, staring at the void. _Have I ever told you about the time Fox stole the Commander’s jewels?_

Of Echo looking at him with knowing eyes. _Foxes aren’t made to be chained up._

“Now, you die, false god!”

Murphy pulls his lips from his teeth, a smile like a grimace stretching over his features.

 _Clarke might have been Wanheda, feared and respected,_ Echo said, _but you are Fox, and the Krus are raised on tales of your resiliency and cunningness, and we love you for it._

“Oh, I am a real god, alright,” he taunts. “I am immortal, and, believe me, I will come back and feast on your heart.”

The scuffle has attracted the attention of other Sanctumites. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the children of Gabriel shifting closer, Wonkru and the Eligius prisoners close the circle.

Trey pulls him up by the hair.

“This is a false god, claiming to be one of the Primes! For his heresy, he dies!”

Murphy wonders if any of the onlookers will come forward and try to put the fire out as Nelson did or if this will be like his hanging when those who claimed to be his friends turned their back on him.

His heart beats wildly against his chest, his body coiled tight.

“Make way for Russell Prime!”

The crowd parts, and there comes Indra, followed by Russell and Emori. Her eyes blaze. Trev bows. “Russell, Kyle, hallowed be your names!”

***

Emori closes the door to their room and pads closer to where he is sitting.

Murphy has taken a bath, but the smell of the oil has seeped into his skin. And has managed to put on clean pants before falling on the bed. His mind buzzes, jumping from one thought to the next too quickly for anything to make sense; his body is exhausted. Just sitting there, on the side of the bed, feels like too much effort. Bruises are blooming around his wrist from the chains.

He still feels the touch of the rope around his throat, the heavy padlock of the collar Ontari put him in. The cold pads of the Eligius shock collar. In the back of his throat lingers the stench of gasoline.

Murphy traces the darkening rings around his wrists.

“Are you ok?”

He blinks, and Emori is suddenly there, kneeling in front of him, her soft brown eyes studying his face. Her good hand lands on his where he was digging his nails into the bruise of his left wrist.

“Great.”

“John.”

The blue dress is fanned around her. It makes her look ethereal and beautiful, every bit the goddess he is not.

 _You wouldn’t have been caught_ , he wants to say but can’t, because she’ll think he’s saying _you should have gone in my stead_.

“The boy told me you saved his life.”

Wide, tear-filled eyes stare at him from their gruesome baptismal tub. His father letting it happen. _If it pleases the Primes_. What kind of father allows their child to be sacrificed?

“Yeah, well. I couldn’t let them burn him, could I? Bellamy would have been disappointed.”

Emori pushes her misshapen hand through his still-damp hair. “You did something extremely brave, John.”

“Now, don’t go around saying stuff like that. It’ll ruin my reputation.”

He wants to hold her, to bury his face in her chest and never let go. He wants to sleep for another century. He wants her to kiss him and chase the taste of gasoline and anointing oil off his tongue.

Instead, Emori bows her head and kisses the bruised wrists, his scuffled knuckles. It looks blasphemous to see her like that.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” she confesses, her voice pitched so low, he barely hears her. Her fear echoes in the silence.

“How could you? I am immortal.”

Except he isn’t, is he? Because for him to be reborn, he would have to erase someone else and his family, the bunch of heroes and good people that they are would never do that. He may have a mind-drive and black blood, but that won’t save him.   
He feels her smile against his knuckles; a tear falls wet and cold on the back of his hand. She raises her eyes, a small glint of mischief peeking through the cloud of distress. “Of course, you are, my Lord of Cockroaches.”

Murphy pulls her up and onto his lap. Her warmth envelops him; her smell feels like home; her weight prevents him from floating away into the black nothingness of the void. He feels safe in her arms, just sitting there, with her wrapped around him.

“Mori?”

“Hmm?”

He remembers Monty’s words _break the circle. Do better_. Remembers they are playing heroes and ‘good people.’ With Emori in his arms, it is easy to think that a world devoid of violence, in which justice doesn’t equate vengeance and an eye for an eye. Here, in this grand room, with the woman he loves protecting him, he can imagine what shape such a world would have.

But the shadow of the collar hangs in the back of his mind, dangling from a tree like a noose, drenched in the stench of gasoline and the smoke of fire. Monsters in the shape of Ontari and Connor and Myles, of Trey and Zev.

Hatred coils in his belly.

Trey and Zev are the worst of them because they’ve turned fire against him. They’ve turned something beautiful and warm, and that always gave him comfort and made it into a weapon against him. How dare they? Fire kept Murphy sane during the unending years of gray walls and self-loathing and feeling trapped in so little space.

“I want to kill them,” his voice comes out matter-of-factify, instead of shaking with sentiment. Monty would be so disappointed. Bellamy would tell him they have to do better, let go of that hatred.

 _Anger, hate, and envy are the ABCs in me. Take that away, and there is nothing left,_ he told Jaha two lifetimes ago. He has found other things, love and friendship, and kindness towards strangers. But that doesn’t make anger and hate go away.

“All of them?” asks Emori, her voice pitched low and neutral. She doesn’t recoil from his touch; her hands keep playing with his hair.

Murphy thinks of the people in the tavern. Their uneasiness as he walked in, the lowered eyes as they anointed his skin. The frightened children he failed to save. Most of them are innocent enough, onlookers, too confused or too scared or too devout to contradict their guides. They are like Jaha’s followers, like Otan: tricked into turning against his sister.

“No, not all of them.” He never wanted to kill all of the delinquents for his attempted hanging. Only Bellamy and Miles and Connor, for pushing the crate from under his feet, for tying his wrists at his back, for tying the noose around his neck. The rest were just crazed by power. They swam along the current, happy for the entertainment and their perceived justice.

“Who do you want to kill?” Emori prompts softly.

“Trey and Zev.”

Murphy choked the delinquents to death. Trey and Zev deserve to be burnt alive.

Emori pulls back, tips his head back. She looks majestic looming over him, her mouth pulled into a firm line, her slanted eyes almost black in the dim light of the room. Cast in her soft, flowy dress, she looks every bit the goddess she pretends to be. She studies him for a long time, her thumb, caressing his cheek, sends electric shivers down his spine.

She doesn’t argue that Monty wouldn’t want that. Doesn’t try to placate his anger, or explain why it’s wrong. Doesn’t try to twist him into the shape of a hero. Murphy loves her for that. Loves that she can look into the ugly truth of his selfishness and not reject him. Loves that her muscles vibrate with anger on his behalf.

When she finally speaks, low and earnest, it feels like divine judgment, and he loves her so much it hurts.

“Their lives shall be yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting.


End file.
